272 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The extent of the loss which the country experiences every 

 year from the destruction of woodlands by fire is enornaous, 

 and could the actual amount of such losses be computed they 

 would astonish even those most familiar with the condition 

 of the American forests. The division of the tenth census 

 which has been specially engaged during the past three 

 years in studying the forests of the country, has endeavored 

 to gather statistics of the extent and value of the forests 

 burned during the year 1880. The results obtained from 

 this investigation have not been published yet. The infor- 

 mation is often vague and untrustworthy, and even after the 

 most careful analysis is so liable to mislead that it will be 

 safer, for the present at least, to use the results as a basis for 

 general discussion, without drawing actual deductions so far 

 as the whole country is concerned from statistical statements 

 in which the danger of error is of necessity considerable. 

 Enough, however, will be shown to indicate, with all due 

 allowance for defective returns, that the extent of forest fires 

 throughout the country is infinitely greater than has ever 

 been seriously supposed. 



In Massachusetts, to be sure, the amount of property 

 destroyed in this manner is shown to be comparatively small, 

 and it is fair to assume in a community like this that esti- 

 mates are more carefully made and more accurately returned 

 than in the thinly settled forest regions of the far Western 

 States and Territories. And yet in Massachusetts, in the year 

 1880, according to these returns, 13,899 acres of woods 

 were burned over, the loss been given at over one hundred 

 thousand dollars. In Pennsylvania, where the value of 

 f(jrest property is more appreciated than in Massachusetts, 

 and the lumbering interests are only second to those of 

 Michigan, 685,738 acres of forest are repoited burned over 

 during the year, with a loss of over three million doUars. 

 It is not probable that these statements are exaggerated, and 

 in the case of Pennsylvania they undoubtedly do not fully 

 represent the actual loss from this cause. The returns show 

 that 3,988 acres of the forest destroyed by fire during that 

 year in Massachusetts were situated in Barnstable County ; 

 that Berkshire County lost 1,377 acres; that Hampshire 

 lost 1,150 ; Essex, 1,780 ; while in Bristol, Dukes and Hamp- 



